Spring arrives in the Napa Valley on waves of wild golden mustard, two and three feet high, vivid yellow rivers beneath the grapevines blanketing the valley floor. The grapes ripen all summer, and in the fall when the leaves turn red and gold, open bins of harvested grapes are ferried to the wineries for the crush, a busy, celebratory time of the year in the California Wine Country. In the heart of the valley on a quiet country road, anchoring the 1,200-acre grounds of Silverado Resort is a circa-1870, white-pillared, ante-bellum-style mansion reminiscent of a southern plantation, built for a Civil War general on a Spanish land grant. The rambling grounds are shaded by towering eucalyptus, palms, oaks, weeping willows, and magnolias whose creamy white, dinner-plate-sized blooms are seductively fragrant in the summertime http://www.silveradoresort.com.

Massive overhanging trees line the fairways of the two Robert Trent Jones, Jr. layouts, built in the 1960s. Surrounded by vineyards and wooded hills, and watered by ponds, lakes and three creeks, the courses have good bones, having hosted many PGA Tour and PGA Champions Tour events. A new grounds maintenance program and a $4 upgrade has raised course conditions to near-perfect, creating a stiff challenge, especially on the greens. Tees were leveled, bunkers restored and fairways re-sodded, among other improvements. Club member and U.S. Open winner, Johnny Miller, who lives in the neighborhood, said, “(The courses) …are so popular because they are traditional, natural designs, not tricked up with railroad ties and funny bunkers, and the place is run like a gracious, old-style resort.” (Click here to read the article in full)

In 1887, twenty-five dollars bought a round-trip ticket on an excursion train from San Francisco to Palm Springs, “the only spot in California where frost, fog and windstorms are absolutely unknown,” according to a real estate advertisement of the day. Mule-drawn buckboards carried passengers from the train station to the Palm Springs Hotel, where they played bridge and drank beer under the palms, soaked in hot mineral pools inside a rickety wooden bathhouse, and picnicked in the Indian Canyons.

In the glamorous Hollywood heyday of the 1920s and 1930s, Errol Flynn, Ginger Rogers and their movie star cohorts routinely made the 100-mile trek over the mountains to Palm Springs in unairconditioned cars to relax at the tiny, Spanish-style La Quinta Hotel. They basked in dry, warm air and played on the nine-hole golf course, the first in the valley, for the green fee of a dollar. (Click here to read the article in full)

The Poppy Hills Golf Course is a golf course in Pebble Beach, California, on the Monterey Peninsula just outside of Monterey, California. It was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. and it opened in 1986. Along with the Pebble Beach Golf Links and the Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Poppy Hills co-hosts the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am golf tournament, usually held in the month of February. It is the first course in the United States that is owned and operated by an amateur golf association, the Northern California Golf Association, which has its headquarters at Poppy Hills. Poppy Hills has been ranked among the best courses in Northern California and has been ranked in the top 20 in California by Golf Digest.

The course
The course is a par 72 that is set among the many trees of the Del Monte Forest. The course is noted for its many dogleg holes as it bends through the forest. Many holes have elevated greens with undulating slopes to make putting difficult. Almost every hole has at least one bunker and several have ponds fronting the green. The second hole, a par three, actually has two greens, which allows for many pin positions. Another interesting fact is that the course has five par three holes and five par five holes. Most courses have only three (four at most) of those.

The course measures 6,861 or 6,833 yards from the back (blue) tees with a slope rating of 74.6/144 for men. From the middle (white) tees the course measures 6,254 or 6,237 yards with a slope rating of 71.5/138 for men and 76.3/141 for women (as a par 73). From the front (gold) trees the course measures 5,471; 5,403; or 5,396 yards with a slope rating of 72.1/131 for men and 71.6/131 for women. Spikeless or non-metal spike golf shoes are required to play at Poppy Hills.

Matt Gogel holds the course record of 62, which is ten under par.

Criticism
PGA Tour players have criticized the fact that Poppy Hills replaced the Cypress Point Club after that course did not immediately admit an African-American member to its private club, despite the asking of the Tour. Cypress Point is set on the Pacific Ocean and has been called one of the best golf courses in the entire world, not just Northern California. At Poppy Hills, players have complained about the number of dogleg holes and the course’s poor drainage during the common winter rainstorms.